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Nebraska Cornhuskers
The Nebraska Cornhuskers represent the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in college basketball. The program saw its first game in 1896 playing 7-on-7 basketball. The first collegiate game was against Nebraska Wesleyan University. As of July 25th, 2016 the program had 1,462 wins and 1,318 losses (.550) with 7 NCAA appearances and 15 NIT appearances. Tim Miles is the current Nebraska men's basketball head coach. History While the University of Nebraska has experienced varying amounts of success for their intercollegiate athletic programs, men's basketball has been an exception. NU hasn't won a conference title since sharing the Big Seven Conference with Kansas and Kansas State in 1950, and they haven't won an outright conference title since going a perfect 12-0 through the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletics Association in 1916. Nebraska has a distinction of one of the few major conference programs never to win a single game in the NCAA Tournament. In fact, in the over 90 years of varsity competition at the University, the first trip to the NCAA Tournament for Nebraska did not come until 1986. Much of the team's success came under the tenure of Danny Nee, head coach from 1987 to 2000. Nee is the team's all-time winningest head coach with a record of 254-190. Nee led the Cornhuskers to five of their six NCAA Tournament appearances, six bids to the National Invitation Tournament, including the 1996 NIT Championship. Barry Collier, who led Nebraska from 2000 to August 2006, left to become athletic director at Butler University. He previously had been Butler's head coach from 1989 to 2000. Nebraska hired Doc Sadler from UTEP as men's basketball head coach following the departure of Collier. After 5 seasons of lack of improvement, Nebraska fired Doc Sadler which would soon feature an emotional presser after his firing. Many rumors circulated that his departure was brought forth because of lack of recruiting ability, and the inability to bring talent into UNL. On March 23rd, 2012, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln hired Tim Miles, former Colorado State Rams head coach after leading the Rams to a 20-12 season and a NCAA Tournament berth. During the year 2013-14, after 1 year of struggling, Tim Miles and Terran Petteway, a transfer from Texas Tech, led the Cornhuskers to their first NCAA tournament berth since 1998, accumulating a 19-13 record. However, the success was short lived. The following season, after gaining picking up a graduate transfer from the Kansas Jayhawks, Andrew White (Who must sit out a year per NCAA Rules), struggled to keep their success going. The Cornhuskers starting Center, Walter Pitchford, declared for the draft on April 1st, 2015. This was first reported by Corn Nation, and many fans legitimately thought that it was an April Fools Day Joke because his numbers and efficiency had plummeted that year. It was soon followed up by Terran Petteway's declaration to attend the 2015 NBA Draft. Both players failed to be drafted, and have since ended up in the NBA's D-league. The 2015-'16 year 16-18 (6-12) brought hope, and what many thought could be a year of surprises for the Cornhuskers. However, the team struggled defensively all through out the year up until the Big Ten tournament. The team was able to win in both qualifying games to advance to the conference tournament quarterfinals, but came up short after a hard fought game against Maryland, with many local reporters saying that the stretch of games was the best the Cornhuskers had played defensively all year. Unfortunately, the Cornhuskers were in store for more offseason drama. Andrew White III, in his first year after transferring from Kansas, told Nebraska Athletic Director Shawn Eichorst that he would be transfering, and informed Coach Miles via text message, according to Lincoln Journal-Star reporter Brian Rosenthal. Fellow teammates made social media posts saying, "If you don't want to be here, I'm glad you aren't." Team honors *Big Eight Conference tournament championships (1): 1994 *NCAA Tournament appearances (7): 1986, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1998, 2014 *NIT Tournament appearances (15): 1967, 1978, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2006, 2008 *NIT Tournament champions (1): 1996 Conference membership history All-time records External links *School website *Official athletics website *HuskerPedia - The Nebraska Cornhuskers Encyclopedia Category:NCAA Division I schools Category:Schools in Nebraska Category:Big Ten Conference members Category:Big Ten Legends Division members